Chalomot Tovim
by Ink On Paper
Summary: Tony protects Ziva from her ghosts. . . .


Chalomot Tovim

She had been nodding off, finally succumbing to exhaustion, and napping lightly, her head pillowed on her folded arms, her muted snores filling the quiet. He had noticed her twitching, his ears catching the frantic, broken murmurs that escaped from her lips. His fingers hovered over his keyboard as he hesitated, torn between waking her or allowing her these few stolen moments of deprived sleep.

However, he didn't have to make the decision because with a choked gasp, she bolted upright, her chair rolling backward and tilting dangerously . . . . She righted herself, blinking rapidly, her dark eyes finally focusing as a single, dewdrop tear escaped down her cheek. She hurriedly swiped it away, obscuring her face behind a curtain of wild curls.

"You okay?" he asked softly, crouching beside her desk. Reluctantly, she met his gaze with a look of defiance that quickly faded at the genuine concern in his ocean eyes. She took a quavering breath, stalling, stealing herself, before parroting her adopted mantra: "I am fine."

"No you're not," he argued after a beat. His eyes swept over her countenance, absorbing the slight concave to her sallow cheeks, the definite darkness that stained the delicate skin beneath her eyes. "You're far from it, even. When was the last time you had a really good night's sleep?"

"Does it matter?" she quipped, turning away from him to tend to something on her desk.

But he remained unfazed, his determination to help her this time resolute. "You matter," he said bravely, which succeeded in recapturing her attention as she slowly maneuvered back to face him.

"I – I have not been sleeping well," she confessed. "Nightmares . . . . I forget, when I am asleep, that I am alive . . . ."

He nodded, favoring her a small smile, "I understand." And she believed him.

"How do they find me? I am as far away from that horrid place as possible and yet his ghost still finds me," she was whispering now, eyes closed, reliving terrors of such depths he couldn't begin to fathom, revisiting dark secrets he couldn't begin to contemplate.

"Will you let me help me help you?" he asked cautiously, scrutinizing her every move –after everything he had been through and survived, death by paperclip seemed a little anticlimactic.

She granted him a tinny quirk of her lips, her eyes both tired and amused. "What," she wondered aloud, "can you do?"

He shrugged, relieved she seemed to at least be considering the offer. "I have an idea, but you have to trust me."

She blinked owlishly, then murmured a barely audible, "Okay."

Her eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the darkness. She blinked several times before her vision honed in on the pale green numbers of the digital alarm clock. 2:47. She had been asleep for four hours . . . .

The movement beside her prompted her into going rigid, her breath hitching, and her heart rate climbing as fear held her in a vice-like fist. . . .

And then recognition dawned and comprehension came flooding back.

The subtle shift behind was merely her companion drawing closer to her –which, she mused, in her sleep fogged mind, wasn't surprising because he was, after all, more attuned to her than anyone. He sighed, his breath hot against her neck, interrupting the steady pattern of his breathing, the lullaby to which she had fallen asleep to. The familiarity of his smell, overtones of his cologne mingled with musky perspiration, overwhelmed her senses, enveloping her. His arm, unconsciously, snaked around her waist, encaging her in a safety she so desperately needed. The warmth of his body pressed against hers, the silk of her pajamas skimming her body, the soft cotton of his t-shirt brushing her bare shoulders. . . .

Tony had promised to keep the monsters at bay and this vow he fulfilled. They spoke circles around the past, focusing on the future and the currentness of their lives. Touching was avoided, though dinner via the local pizzeria was shared. And his bed –though she distinctly recalled later, when she woke up entangled in his arms, with the sheets that smelled of him and faint traces of her swaddling her, that they had drifted off with a generous amount of mattress between them, and that him curled around her like a spoon was an unconscious development (but one that felt so very right).

It was Tony that anchored her, kept her hibernating mind from encroaching upon desolate memories, and likewise barricaded her from the poisonous tendrils that loomed out from the blackest recesses of her brain. His presence encompassing her senses served as the concrete reminder that she, Ziva David, escaped from the bowels of hell, alive and, relatively, unscathed.

Sleep reclaimed her at the gentle coaxing of Tony's heartbeat and the nightmares faded into oblivion. . . .


End file.
